


song for a sleeping girl

by slybrunette



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-25
Updated: 2008-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 5.09. Days after he tells Derek that one of them has to take her home, knowing all along which one it would be, he finds her in the on-call room on a late shift of his. Awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	song for a sleeping girl

Days after he tells Derek one of them has to take her home, knowing all along which one it would be, he finds her in one of the on-call rooms on a late shift of his.

"I didn't know you were on-call," Mark says, taking the top bunk, even as she sits up like she's scared she's intruding or isn't supposed to be here. He doesn't do anything to calm her nerves, but after a moment she settles back down.

"I'm not," Lexie tells him, carefully.

He turns over onto his stomach, his head hanging over the edge of the bunk so he can see her, small and nervous beneath him. "Then what are you doing here?" is the next obvious question.

She twists under his gaze. "I don't feel like going home," she answers, vaguely, and it's like pulling teeth with this girl. He wonders just how much sleep she hasn't had, again.

"Thought you were living with Big Grey?"

Her nose wrinkles, probably at the name, just like her sister, and all she gives him is, "I was."

"Okay, then," he sighs, determining that he isn't going to get much out of her and it's probably better for him to just leave it alone so he does. For once.

\---

The next night he works late, a Tuesday, he makes sure he's on the third floor and finds the same room, following a hunch that turns out to be dead on.

"This is becoming habit Grey," he tells her, when he sees her eyes are still open, still awake.

She only nods.

By the time his pager goes off an hour later she's fast asleep and he feels oddly pleased.

\---

He may have changed his shifts around, just a little, so that he's on nights more than once a week.

If anyone notices (and Derek notices and glares like he just knows this is about Lexie but doesn't have proof - yet) they don't say a word.

\---

"Are you just the only other person who uses these?" Lexie asks, one night, finally doing more than just answering questions.

He thinks on it a moment, then, "Yang does, sometimes. And Torres. Everyone else just uses them for sex." Which brings to mind the question of when they were last washed but he doesn't vocalize that thought. "Why? Problem with your current company."

"No," she replies, quietly, no comeback, no wit.

Everything (everyone) is different at night.

\---

The night he absentmindedly takes his scrub top off, just like he always used to before she started sharing the room with him (if Derek ever comes in here it's best that he's fully clothed, for everyone's sake), and tosses it into the corner does not go unnoticed.

Her eyes linger on the balled up clothing. No one says a word.

\---

"I've never been on my own before." She admits, one night, in the safety of darkness, of half-consciousness. "I was with my parents and then I was with George, except that's too hard now, and Meredith doesn't really want me at her house. I don't have a place to go. I don't know how to be on my own."

He nods, waits for what's next.

"And I can't sleep. I don't sleep, and I'm tired, but I just...can't."

Mark listens as she exhales, like she's letting out a breath she was holding, before he says, "I know the feeling."

\---

Three weeks later he makes good on that promise.

"Come on," Mark says, tugging at the edge of the blankets so as to let her know that he means business.

She sits up quickly, holding them firm, with a smile. "What? You want the bottom now?"

"No." He responds, her clothes and her coat in his hands, fresh out of her locker thanks to practically threatening O'Malley. He gave in, and, wisely, chose not to ask. "I'm not on-call. And stop throwing innuendos at me."

"Wait, what?" Confusion is apparent in her eyes, in her face. He hands her clothes anyways. "Where did you get these? How did you get these?"

"Meet me in the parking lot in five." He tells her, instead of answering, closing the door before she could protest, knowing full well that she would follow.

\---

She beats him there, her lip caught between her teeth, eyes bright with curiosity. "So what are we doing?"

"You need a place to sleep." He unlocks the car, holding the passenger side door open for her, an offering. "The ball's in your court."

Lexie pulls her coat a little tighter around herself, looking back at the hospital, like she's looking for something to stop her. Someone to stop her.

Nothing does. She gets in the car.

\---

He sleeps with her.

Not _with_ her but next to her (and he deserves a medal for that because Mark Sloan does not sleep _beside_ people, except she keeps breaking all his rules and dammit he almost likes it).

If the arrangements of his one-bed hotel room bother her then she doesn't say it. She just tugs at the covers and closes her eyes and her breathing evens out, slow and steady.

Asleep.

More importantly, not alone.


End file.
